Joyce Hargreaves

​Joyce Hargreaves trained at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts studying under the printmaker Michael Rothenstein and gaining a National Diploma of Design in Illustration at an advanced level. Upon leaving college she worked for 12 years at World Wide Animated Film Studios as a designer, illustrating such diverse subjects as a diagrammatic film of splitting the atom, cartoon films and a televised series of Enid Blyton films for children. Later she took charge of one section of the film studios which made the film for the Beatles ‘Yellow Submarine’.On leaving animated films, she returned to her artistic roots producing paintings, woodcuts, etchings and linocuts which were exhibited widely throughout the British Isles, France, Poland, Germany and the U.S.A Her works are in the collections of the Berlin Print Library; the Print Library at Greenwich; the Bradford Art Gallery; Education Authorities, Training Colleges and Schools as well as in Private Collections. Her printmaking lead her to producing a hand printed linocut book based on one of the tales from ‘The Pentamerion of Giambattista Basile’ adapted by Joyce from the translation by Sir Richard Burton. She then went on to produce a book called ‘Hand Printmaking’ which detailed methods of creating and printing woodcuts, linocuts and various other methods with Joyce’s own work as examples. She also produced another book for the same publisher, Batsfords, ‘New ways with Macrame’ teaching ways to combine macramé with ceramics, papier mache, beads and objects trouves, again illustrated by Joyce. ​

Joyce designed and produced a bi-annual journal for the research intoLost Knowledge Organisation RILKO Illustrating a number of articles and she spends a lot of time researching subjects of mythology, astrology, folklore and the occult. She travelled over 3000 miles visiting sites connected with the mythology of dragons throughout the British Isles and wrote and illustrated ‘The Dragon Hunters Handbook” published by Granada and’Hargreaves’ New Illustrated Bestiary’ containing nearly 200 of her drawings. RILKO has also published a book of her drawings that have appeared in the journals over the years. Joyce has published nine books to date, the latest of which is called “A Little History of Dragons” published by Wooden Books in England, America, and also translated into Japanese and published in Japan.

She was personally invited by the Mayor of Abbeville, France, to exhibit her work; mainly pen and ink and wash drawings. She has also been commissioned by a private collector to produce a series of drawings of the characters from E.F Benson’s Mapp & Lucia books. She now works mainly in these mediums with watercolour which allows here to concentrate on the finely detailed work she so loves. Joyce was also editor of the Rye Museum and Local History Journal which had three publications a year and also produces work for the E.F Benson Society, which is an ongoing project. Joyce has also published works of her own imprint including ‘The Signs of the Zodiac – The Hunt of the Heavenly Host’ written and illustrated by her for Charterhouse Mint to accompany a series of Zodiac Thimbles she designed for them.

Until his death in 2011, Joyce worked very closely with her husband, the renowkned butterfly artist Brian Hargreaves, designing many of his books including ‘Butterflies on My Mind’ by Dulcie Gray which won The Times Educational Supplement Senior Information Book Award. Together they illustrated an educational book for children entitled ‘Creatures Catalogue” for Ginns Science and have also produced single illustrations for them.